


white

by oceansgate



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, F/F, Fluff, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 07:52:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17484134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansgate/pseuds/oceansgate
Summary: Lou Miller has rules but sometimes things happen which put your rules into perspective.





	white

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flutter2deceive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutter2deceive/gifts).



> part of the ocean's 8 winter gift exchange
> 
> (I'm trying out a slightly different writing style, a little more like poetry, so I hope you still enjoy it)

White.

Piercing, crushing, blistering white.

Everywhere.

It hums, vibrations quivering. It pulses and pushes and stretches on and on and on into the edge of forever.

Somewhere (far away) a bell rings out.

“LOU!” it calls.

“LOU! LOU! LOU!”

Its sound is familiar. It’s the call of a thousand churches and a thousand schools and a thousand lovers summoning you home.

She leans back into the white. Lets it billow around her and pool in her hollow spaces. It pierces and crushes and blisters everywhere. But it feels good. It feels necessary.

And the sound of the bell (still far away). She leans back into that too. It’s comforting. More comforting than the white, but no less necessary.

“LOU! LOU! LOU!” it calls.

She sinks further into the white. She lets it begin to slip over her. The bell still rings out, cradling her, softer and softer and softer…

“Lou… lou… lou…”

**∞**

“I think you should come to New York with me”

“I think I should stay here - holidays are for family”

“Well will you be with your family here?”

“We’re not talking about me.”

“Yes we are.”

Lou has rules too. She is well aware of Debbie Ocean’s rules, but she wonders if Debbie is aware of hers. Probably not. Is Debbie Ocean aware of anything but herself?

(Lou knows this is unfair. Lou knows this is not true, because if it was they wouldn’t be having this conversation. But Lou has her rules and this is the sort of thing they involve telling herself.)

Lou Miller’s rule number one: Do not (under any circumstances) get attached. Ever. To anyone or anything.

Lou plays it fast and loose. She runs by herself or she runs with someone else but only for as long as they are useful to her and only for as long as she knows she can drop them without a second’s hesitation. That’s how she does business. That’s how she does relationships. That’s just how she does it. No need to get attached. Ever.

(There’s safety in it, you see. In the ability to drop someone the second you see storm clouds bubbling on the horizon, to turn and run before they roll overhead, to be gone long before they split apart and unleash their contents down upon you. Lou Miller has dropped and run more times than she can count. It’s come to be her speciality, if she’s honest.)

But Debbie Ocean.

It’s been ten months. It should be time to drop and run – hell it should probably have been time to drop and run several months ago. But Debbie Ocean is too good, and her work is too clean, and so the storm clouds never come and now Lou barely ever even looks up into the sky to check. But that means it should be time to drop and run.

Because never forget Lou Miller’s rule number one: Do not (under any circumstances) get attached. Ever. To anyone or anything.

“I’ll think about it.”

“So that means you’ll come?”

“No. It means I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll call my mom, tell her to expect two not one.”

  **∞**

The white stretches and she stretches with it. And then it contracts and she contracts with it. It twists and twists and she twists too and she wonders where the white ends and she begins.

The bell continues to ring (far away).

She wants to move towards the sound, but she’s not sure exactly where it is coming from. Or if she could move at all.

And she’s not even sure if she can hear a bell at all. Softly, it floats on the breeze, grazing against her.

(But there is no breeze, and if there is no breeze does that mean there is no bell?)

“Lou…”

The white squeezes and squeezes and she’s not sure she remembers how to breathe.

“Lou…”

The white is in her ears now and she’s not sure she remembers how to hear.

The bell continues to ring (far away).

   **∞**

Watching Debbie Ocean undress is a spiritual experience. One which requires Lou to remind herself of her second rule. Repeatedly.

Although, if she’s being honest (and she rarely is, not in her line of work), watching Debbie Ocean do many things requires her to remind herself of her second rule.

“We should reach the city by tomorrow evening for sure, as long as we don’t sleep too late.”

“You drive too fast. I don’t know how we made it so far today.”

“Aw honey does my driving scare you? Besides, don’t you want to make it home by Christmas Eve?”

“Nothing scares me baby, surely you know that? And I do, of course I do, but I want to make it there alive.”

Sometimes, when she’s lying awake in bed at night, (especially nights like these, in a cheap motel room, one bed, two bodies, achingly close) she allows herself to imagine what it might be like, if she wasn’t so bound by her second rule.

And what it would be like if seduction wasn’t Debbie Ocean’s mother tongue. If the words which slipped so easily from her mouth were more than just the currency she traded in.

Lou knows how to trade in it too of course – she knows how to let the silky lines clamber out of her mouth and into their ears, how to make her words stroke and purr and soften while the silk wraps itself tightly around their wrists until they are bound securely wherever she wants them, begging to do exactly what she asks of them.

It’s a game and she plays it well.

But Debbie Ocean plays it better.

And somewhere along the way Lou has lost track of where the game ends and her life begins.

And somewhere along the way she has let Debbie’s words crawl down her throat and plant themselves into her heart and maybe it happened the moment they met (eyes locking over a game of blackjack, both knowing…) and maybe if she hadn’t watered them with months of cons and whispered lines and falling asleep next to each other and Debbie’s perfume stitching itself into Lou’s clothes… maybe if none of that had happened then those seeds wouldn’t have grown.

 And maybe now their roots wouldn’t be curling down into her gut and maybe now their branches wouldn’t be wrapping themselves around her lungs and maybe now she wouldn’t be lying in bed thinking about the spiritual experience of watching Debbie Ocean undress.

And maybe now she wouldn’t be considering the _real_ necessity of Lou Miller’s rule number two.

(Lou Miller’s rule number two: never, ever, (under any circumstances) fuck your partner)

   **∞**

The storm clouds she’d forgotten to look for have split open. She didn’t see them arrive, she didn’t see them forming, she didn’t know to drop and run. She doesn’t even see them now but she knows they must be there because she can feel the rain, each droplet burning as it lands on her.

She wants to reach up a hand to wipe the water off her face. But she doesn’t know where her hands are.

Or her face.

All she knows is the white still stretched around her. And the rain falling gently from above. And the bell, still ringing (far away).

  ****∞****

“You know how I said we should make it to the city by this evening?”

“Yeah..?”

“Well, we might have to reconsider…”

They had their plans but the universe had its own and right now Lou doesn’t give a fuck (she was never that keen on plans anyway, plans are Debbie’s thing… endless lists and charts and calendars that Lou would read and nod and add to but never fully see the necessity of). The snow stretches out before her and the sunlight leaps from its surface and straight into her heart. She can feel it bubbling up, threatening to spill up and cascade over her lips in trickles of giggles and childhood dreams.

Debbie’s forehead is resting gently against her shoulder now and her skin leaps up to meet it.

Somewhere, far away, Lou Miller’s first two rules scream. She hears them. But only just.

Because the sunlight is filling her ears and dancing in her eyes and she doesn’t hear Debbie’s moans and protests either, as she grabs her hand and drags her outside.

“Lou what are we doing?”

“We’re having fun.”

“Lou it’s freezing.”

“It’s snow Debbie, that’s the point”

The point is made by a face full of cold thrown by a lazy hand; gentle, teasing, but still enough of a shock to pull a breathless scream from chattering lips.

And soon the air is tripping over breathless screams and glittering laughter and Lou is cold (she’s so cold) but she’s warm too.

Warm because the light streaming from Debbie’s eyes wraps heat around her and the sound of Debbie breathless behind her with fistfuls of snow strikes a fire in her gut and so she’s cold but she’s warm in the best way.

And when, inevitably, they both tumble to the ground, limbs and voices tangled together, Lou knows there is nowhere else on this earth she would rather be. And when, inevitably, wrapped in Debbie’s arms with the cold seeping through her skin, their lips begin to dip towards each other, it takes everything in Lou to hold still and remember her first two rules.

But she does it. She remembers and she doesn’t let their lips meet but she doesn’t break from Debbie’s embrace either. They lie there together cocooned by the snow and Lou closes her eyes and the cold seeps through her skin and after a while the warmth seeping from her heart begins to fade until only the cold remains.

And all she can feel is the cold.

And all she can see is the white.

  **∞**

The ring of the bell is changing.

It no longer strikes a single note. It is a soft thread of music, dribbling into her. A lullaby, soothing her to sleep.

“Loupleasewakeup

loupleaselistentome

loupleaseholdon

louplease

louplease

louplease”

The melody is familiar. She wants to sing along but she can’t understand the words.

The white is pulling her away from the music. And she wants to let it. The white is persuasive and it threads itself through her and it wants to take her somewhere far away from the music. And she wants to let it.

But the melody is familiar. The melody sounds like home.

“Loupleasewakeup

loupleaselistentome

loupleaseholdon

louplease

louplease

louplease”

If she focuses (if she really focuses) she can find the thread of the music as it drips into her. It’s fine and it’s delicate but she can find it and she can hold on.

The white is pulling her away.  And she wants to let it.

But she has the thread of the music now.

And she holds on.

  **∞**

White.

Everywhere.

But now it is different. It is further away and there is space in between her and the white.

And then there’s the cold. The cold wasn’t there before.

Piercing, crushing, blistering cold.

“LOU!”

It’s the ring of the bell. But it’s not far away anymore – it’s close and urgent and panicked and oh so achingly familiar. She tries to turn her head towards the sound but the white rushes close again and her bones splinter and her stomach throws itself into her throat.

The bell begins to whimper softly next to her and now it’s not only her bones splintering but her heart too.

“Oh Lou… oh Lou you’re awake. Stay with my voice Lou… please…”

“Debbie…”

“Oh Lou… I’m so sorry… Lou I didn’t know what to do… keep your eyes open Lou… please…”

“Debbie…”

“I’m here… I’m here… I’m here…”

   **∞**

Lou Miller’s rule number one: Do not (under any circumstances) get attached. Ever. To anyone or anything.

Lou Miller’s rule number two: never, ever, (under any circumstances) fuck your partner.

If she’s being honest (and she rarely is, not in her line of work), rule number one has been broken for months now. She’s been lying to herself, refusing to admit it, but it’s true.

Lou Miller would have been unable to drop Debbie Ocean and run for quite some time now.

And that’s dangerous. But Lou lives off danger (she thrives off it) so when it all comes down to it, what is a little danger in return for Debbie Ocean? She’s been refusing to admit it, but really, she did the calculations months ago and the odds came up in favour of staying and so the roots in her gut grew stronger and the branches in her lungs grew longer and the silk binding her to Debbie grew tighter and tighter and tighter.

Lou Miller’s rule number two though; that one she would never budge on.

Except, nearly dying of hypothermia and regaining consciousness to find yourself wrapped tightly in someone’s arms with their tears dripping onto your face and their voice pleading in your ear can shift things slightly.

And now, as she lies still curled into Debbie’s arms, a bed beneath her and the snow safely outside, she wonders why she ever thought her rules were necessary. Because surely nothing could be worth more than feeling Debbie contracting hard around her and surely nothing could be worth more than the sound of Debbie moaning her name and surely nothing could be worth more than the taste of Debbie filling her mouth.

And surely nothing (absolutely nothing on this earth) could be worth more than this feeling swelling in her heart and spilling into her stomach and her lungs and her skin and her fingertips.

No, lying here gazing at Debbie Ocean sleeping softly beside her, Lou Miller knows. Fuck her rules.

There is nothing worth more than this.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to tinglingworld and asexualising for organising this gift exchange,it has been super fun and I can't wait to enjoy all the new content from it!
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this (especially flutter2deceive), please let me know your thoughts and comments... <3


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